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A while ago, I attempted to discover what the greatest books of all time were based on factors like popularity of books, writing quality, lessons taught, etc. I quickly realized that while everyone has their own opinion as to what the greatest books in the world are, very few agree. So, I thought, “Well, I bet the best-selling books of all time could paint an idea of which books are really most popular (at least commercially),” and this post shows my findings. However, it turns out that even tracking which books have sold the most isn’t straightforward either.
Due to factors like multiple versions and publishers, exaggeration of the truth to sell movies, books in the public domain, etc., we end up with “estimates” of what books have sold the most, usually rounded to the million. And that’s exactly why there are 102 best-selling books of all time here and not a nice, round 100. I couldn’t stop in the middle of the 20 millions—who could say which of those in the 20 million round really had sold the most? Besides this, here are the additional parameters for this list:
- The Bible is probably the most-sold book in the entire world with an estimated 5 billion books sold and distributed over time. Other religious and political books like the Quran and Quotations from Chairman Mao, are also believe to have over a billion copies in existence. However, since sales numbers for the books are nearly impossible to track because many are given away by churches or governments, they aren’t included in this list, but it’s probably safe to say that they are among the top-selling books of all time. However, religious books outside the main bibles are included.
- There is no central repository for total sales numbers for books. Publishers may not share sales numbers for individual books, or their reported numbers may be inaccurate, skewed by movie marketing hype, multiple version, multiple publishers, or by being in the public domain. The fact is, any worldwide sales figures for a book more than a few years old are educated guesses at best.
- Series were not included as wholes; therefore, books from series were not included unless an individual book from a series could stand up to the most sold books on its own.
- “Best selling“ refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned.
- Comics and textbooks are not included in this list.
- The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that are commonly cited as “best-selling books” yet have no reliable sales figures because of the many public domain re-releases.
The Best-Selling Books of All Time
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (500 million copies sold)
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (200 million copies sold)
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (150 million copies sold)
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (142 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (120 million copies sold)
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (100 million copies sold)
- The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin (100 million copies sold)
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (100 million copies sold)
- She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard (100 million copies sold)
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (100 million copies sold)
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (85 million copies sold)
- The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (>80 million copies sold)
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (80 million copies sold)
- Vardi Wala Gunda by Ved Prakash Sharma (80 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (77 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (65 million copies sold)
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (65 million copies sold)
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (65 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (65 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (65 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (65 million copies sold)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (65 million copies sold)
- The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller (60 million copies sold)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (60 million copies sold)
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (60 million copies sold)
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (60 million copies sold)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez (50 million copies sold)
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (50 million copies sold)
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (50 million copies sold)
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (50 million copies sold)
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (50 million copies sold)
- You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay (50 million copies sold)
- Heidi’s Years of Learning and Travel by Johanna Spyri (50 million copies sold)
- The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock (50 million copies sold)
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (50 million copies sold)
- The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins (50 million copies sold)
- The Hite Report by Shere Hite (50 million copies sold)
- The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy (50 million copies sold)
- Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace (50 million copies sold)
- The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley (50 million copies sold)
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (45 million copies sold)
- The Odyssey by Homer (45 million copies sold)
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (44 million copies sold)
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (43 million copies sold)
- A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard (40 million copies sold)
- Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder (40 million copies sold)
- Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews(40 million copies sold)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (40 million copies sold)
- Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (39 million copies sold)
- Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (37 million copies sold)
- How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky (36.4 million copies sold)
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (36 million copies sold)
- The Diary of a Young Girl, The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank (35 million copies sold)
- Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer (35 million copies sold)
- The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey/C.C. Carlson (35 million copies sold)
- The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (33 million copies sold)
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ( 31.5 million copies sold)
- Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (31 million copies sold)
- In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? by Charles M. Sheldon (30 million copies sold)
- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (30 million copies sold)
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (30 million copies sold)
- 1984 by George Orwell (30 million copies sold)
- The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren (30 million copies sold)
- The Revolt of Mamie Stover by William Bradford Huie (30 million copies sold)
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (30 million copies sold)
- The Young Guard by Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev (26 million copies sold)
- Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson (26 million copies sold)
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (25 million copies sold)
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (25 million copies sold)
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (25 million copies sold)
- Virgin Soil Upturned by Mikhail Sholokhov (24 million copies sold)
- The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (23 million copies sold)
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (23 million copies sold)
- The Fault in our Stars by John Green (23 million copies sold)
- The Shack by William P. Young (22 million copies sold)
- Uncle Styopa by Sergey mikhalkov (21 million copies sold)
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo (21 million copies sold)
- Love Story by Erich Segal (21 million copies sold)
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (20 million copies sold)
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (20 million copies sold)
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (20 million copies sold)
- The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz (20 million copies sold)
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (20 million copies sold)
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (20 million copies sold)
- Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (20 million copies sold)
- The Happy Hooker: My Own Story by Xaviera Hollander (20 million copies sold)
- Jaws by Peter Benchley (20 million copies sold)
- Love your Forever by Robert Munsch (20 million copies sold)
- The Women’s Room by Marilyn French (20 million copies sold)
- What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Arlene Eisenberg and Heidi Murkoff (20 million copies sold)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (20 million copies sold)
- The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend (20 million copies sold)
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (20 million copies sold)
- Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl (20 million copies sold)
- The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek (20 million copies sold)
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (20 million copies sold)
- The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (20 million copies sold)
- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (20 million copies sold)
- Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (20 million copies sold)
- Dune by Frank Herbert (20 million copies sold)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (20 million copies sold)
- The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris (20 million copies sold)
Did any of these best-selling books of all time surprise you? How many do you have on your shelves? Let us know in the comments below!
Happy reading,
The information found here on top-selling books was gathered from Wikipedia and Ranker.
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I’ve read 37 of those books. Very disappointing! I was convinced the number was going to be much, much higher. My shelves are not all in one room and not even in one location, but as I recall they do not contain more than two or three of the named books (and I am being very optimistic about those numbers). At least four of those books came from the library – recently.
I will have to try to do better. (Maybe I should start with those seven Harry Potter books?)
Thank you for the list!
Dear Goodreads, “P+P” plus “Jane Eyre” at the top of our all-time list of literary novels? Really? Can’t we do better than this?
Anyway, David, have you ever reviewed either Catcher, Lord of the Flies or Mockingbird? I noticed that you review many of the books that you mention in discussions and all.
How was this list created? (i.e. how was it determined which books would be on list and which wouldn’t)?
I have 28 of these books.
Read 27 1/2 (couldn’t get through Lord of the Rings), own 17. I should think that the problems of multiple editions, translations etc and some being sold in adaptions has also skewed the count.
I’ve read close to 40 but own 35 of them still.
I have quite a few of these, and I have read many of the others. What happened to the Bible? It used to be the best-seller of all times.
I have only read 37! I am a Voracious Reader. I too, find it odd, that Wuthering Heights is not in there, nor more Agatha Christie, or more Sir Conan Doyle. However, I never had children, can understand tha! There are so many classics that should be required reading? To me personally, I now understand the uneducated masses in this Country! If you are spending that much money on trash like Harry Potter, which is nothing, but glorification of the Occult, I can see why the World is in trouble! I don’t appreciate your denigrating THE BIBLE, by saying the Quoran has been read, or sold as many copies! Being forced to read a Religious Book, is much different, than voluntarily buying the BIBLE.
I have 69!
Well read Abe!
Pursuant to pmg67’s comment, I decided to count the books I had actually read from this list.
I came up with a very short count of 15!
On a whim, I then decided to count how many of these books I had seen in movie form. I ended with a count of 23. Which is half again as much.
After reading the Wikipedia page on Fanny Hill, it would seem that the book was so hounded by the “authorities” in the UK and US, pre-1970, that the book had a very hard time of it and so did not realize the sales it would have been entitled to. I suppose the same can be said of Moll Flanders. Therefore, while these two books would be entitled to be on this list, were it not for the censorship which gripped most of the English world pe-1970.
Yes, some did surprise me.
For instance, there is only one title listed from Dame Agatha, Where I would have expected that with all the translations worldwide, more of her books would have been included in this list, especially Murder on the Orient Express, or some of her Poirot books.
Others which did surprise me were the poor showings of the books near the end of the list from about number 80 onwards.
Numbers 24 and 25, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (60 million copies sold) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (60 million copies sold) surprised me for their rather poor showing, seeing that these books are each more than a century old and usually a staple of boyhood libraries. And where’s Mysterious Island? It, too, should have shown up with sales in the 20+ millions of copies.
And what about Fanny Hill and Moll Flanders, two other books which should be included in this list, it seems to me.
PS
Please correct #86 The Happy Hooker: My Own Story by Xaviera Hoillander (20 million copies sold), which should read Xaviera Hollander with no i in her last name.
Thank you so very much for this list and the time it took to compile it, especially the amount of time it took to do the research on all these books.
Al
A LOT MORE THAN I THOUGHT I HAD…I actually have over 65 of these on my shelves…not bad for an old gal!